Sunday, June 26, 2011

I have been very busy! Firstly, my mom had a stroke last week and she is still in the hospital, she is doing much better. Then Kevin had knee surgery on Friday and is recovering nicely. In the middle of all of this, we had some Hostas delivered that needed to be planted. Kevin and I have been working on the backyard. It is a steep slope making it difficult to cut the grass so we are planting some of our favorite plants to elimate some of the work. Next is to put steps down the center to the gate.

Here you can see a little of the slope. It is 45 degrees, trecherous! Planting on the hill was very difficult, especially by myself. I fell twice and now have ice on my shoulder! It needed to be done because Kevin's friend Time sent us 8 beautiful Hostas from his garden in Iowa and we didn't want them to die. I did all this while Kevin's knee is recooperating and all the kids are away!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Here is the quilt top now pinned and ready to quilt. A few weeks ago, I blogged about making a quilt for my Aunt Beth who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. She has had her surgery and now is going through radiation. I hope to surprise her with this quilt. I have already starting to HAND QUILT this beauty. It will take longer, but it will be worth it. She will cherish it for years to come!

I decided to embellish the quilt with some pearl cotton embroidery designs. I wanted to add the names of her immediate family, her hubby and her three children into the quilt to make it more personal. What I did to accomplish this is I pinned the top to the batting only and then added the stitching. After all the needle work was done, I pinned the back on. This way the embroidery's knots and strings did not show through to the back. For the sashing between the stacked coins, I used pearl pink KONA solid fabric, my favorite!

For the back of the quilt, I decided to add another personal touch. She has two grandchildren so far. Since I added the names of her children on the front of the quilt, I couldn't decide if I should add the names of the grandchildren too. My dilema was that I didin't want to exclude future grandchildren if I put the two existing grandchildren names on the quilt. The solution was simple, they call her "BeBe" so I decided to put that on the back as a way to include all the future offspring without having to name them all. I thought it was pretty ingenius. She loves being called this!

Sorry for posting a day late. Had a GI bug this week and worked way too hard. Finally going to take a break and enjoy the next 4 days off. Hopefully I will get some sewing done.

We should all be very proud of reaching such a great accomplishment! We have stuck together for over a year and have lost 500+ pounds as group. You make me proud! I appreciate all the support and doing this has made me accountable! A challenge I never thought would last this long. Thanks to all.